This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

Bulletin

Winning compensation for unlawful detention of rape survivor

You may have heard about the case of Ms PB who was recently awarded £38,000 for unlawful detention including £6000 “aggravated damages” for the suffering caused to her as a victim of rape and other torture. Ms PB first spoke about the rape she suffered to her first lawyer, who told her not to raise it in court. It was not until she read the material we sent her, including WAR's Rights Sheet for Rape Survivors Seeking Asylum, and spoke to one of our volunteers, that she felt able to speak about it again. Our rota of volunteers continues to be a life-line for women in Yarl’s Wood who can get help nowhere else. For many women it has been the only way they have found the courage to speak about rape.

Women reunited with their children

5 March was one of the happiest occasions of this past year for many of us. Betty A, a longstanding and much loved volunteer was reunited with the four childrenwhom she was forced to leave behind when she fled Uganda. The full and heart-rending story is still to be told but the reunification of this family is the culmination of an extraordinary effort over two years by Betty herself, WAR and our dedicated supporters. More

John Mc Donnell MP and Lord Avebury hosted a packed meeting in the House of Commons which brought together women asylum seekers, MPs, Lords, lawyers, community and breastfeeding activists and other supporters to highlight the obstacles rape survivors face in getting their claims recognized. WAR’s speaker highlighted research to which we contributed, which found that 70% of women in Yarl’s Wood are rape survivors*, despite Home Office guidelines which say survivors of torture should not be detained. Many have never felt able to speak about rape before they contact us, or have been ignored or disbelieved when they did. Barrister Louise Hooper from Garden Court Chambers warned that solicitors will not be able to afford to take on “complex” cases when proposed legal aid cuts take effect in the autumn.

Our Asylum from Rape Project provides self-help support services to rape survivors seeking asylum. We offer help and referrals, welcome volunteers and provide guidance to organisations on how to meet women’s needs.

New publication: Misjudging Rape - A Dossier of how adjudicators (now known as immigration judges) flout international law and even their own guidelines when they consider the asylum claims of women and girls seeking safety and protection from rape. Compiled by Black Women’s Rape Action Project (BWRAP) & Women Against Rape (WAR).